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Monday, April 29, 2013

Pieous

A good foodie friend of mine lives in Dripping Springs, and has always lamented the lack of quality restaurants in her area. Well, things are a changin'. Pieous, a pizza spot, has opened on Hwy. 290 just before the Nutty Brown Cafe if you're coming from Austin. And while it's not actually in Dripping, it's close enough that my friend has now been several times, and invited me to go with her last Sunday.

It's a cute red building and a big dirt lot in front with plenty of parking. When you walk inside, it's a nice open room with a mix of communal seating, counter seating, regular tables and even a patio.

You go to the back corner to study the menu and order. Now they've only been open about two months, but there were no paper/printed menus to hold in-hand and look at, as all the menu items are listed on the chalkboard. I think if I hadn't been there with friends who had been a number of times, I would have been a bit overwhelmed! I hope they will consider adding some printed menus because it got crowded up at the counter, and if you're a few people deep in line, you can't read the board. Now I swear I didn't notice this before on their Facebook page, but there is a link to their menu items.

Here's the pizza menu and your choice of toppings.

We ordered the Fat Queen, which has sopressata, pepperoni, and sausage, and as you can see, nice amount of toppings. The pizzas are probably about 12" (maybe a bit bigger?) in diameter. One pizza and a salad would probably be good for two people. (But we were three hungry people, and not afraid of leftovers.) The pizzas cook very quickly in their wood-fired oven. The outer crust is lightly crisp and nice an chewy. You can taste the yeastiness of the crust. I would have liked the bottom crust to have been a bit crisper, but this is still extremely good pizza.

And we had the Bacon Bleu, with bacon marmalade, gorgonzola and mozzarella cheeses, and arugula. As you can see, there was plenty of arugula, but not quite enough bacon marmalade. Being the bacon lover, I wanted more bacony goodness distributed more evenly across the crust. But when you did get a bite of the sweet and salty bacon jam, the lightly bitter arugula, and the pungency of the bleu cheese, you had a near-perfect mouthful of food.

Pieous occupies the old Cartwright's BBQ spot, and when they went
out of business, they also left their smoker. Pieous
realized they couldn't just leave it there unattended, so they are
smoking some beef and making pastrami. And not just any pastrami, really
good, moist pastrami, that's almost like a brisket. I've never really been a pastrami eater, but my friends insisted that we get the pastrami plate! I think I am now a pastrami convert! Very moist, tender pastrami, lightly pickled onions, a couple of mustards, and some sourdough bread. It's also generous portion of meat for under $11.

The husband and wife owners also came around to check on their customers and to make sure everything was to your liking. They have three young children, so it's a very
child-friendly place. So much so, that one whole section of their
beautiful chalk art decorated interior is a corner for kids to draw on. I
loved all the chalk art, but more importantly, it also tells a story about their food.

They also offer a variety of desserts. See the cookie under the middle dome? It completely filled a standard white paper plate! Tasted like it was made with butter too.

So take a little drive just west of town. Pieous has a different style of pizza than the "other" popular places in Austin; it's not cracker-crust thin, or uniformly crispy throughout, or huge slices that you fold in half to eat. These are special creations. And as you would expect with a small family-owned artisinal business, you can see and taste the pride that went into making your food. And yes, Pieous pizza does make you happy.

Good to see you today - I need to make it out there to try Pieous, the pictures make this place look awesome, and I've seen a lot of other good reviews. Also, have you been to Creek Road Cafe just down the street? That place has some great food as well, especially some of the Asian fusion stuff they have.

Catching up on my blog reading this week (months and months of it) :) We will heading out to Pieous this weekend and looking forward to it, especially after reading your review. Good to know it's a kid-friendly destination as well!Michelle

We loved it - we had the pastrami plate and a pepperoni pizza. Hands down the best pizza (sauce-wise and dough-wise) that we've had in Austin. X loved the chalk board. We will definitely be going back - want to get the mozzarella plate next time. And try the desserts!

I've had the worst experience with this place including leaving a comment on how bad the experience has been. I tried to place a pickup order and the only way you can do it is through an app. I then tried to order to pick something up to eat the same night and it wouldn't let me . I then went to place an order thinking there will some type of confirmation time before you place the order and there was not. I then ended up paying for a pizza that would be ready the next day and not the night that I actually wanted it. I tried to call to fix it and/or cancel my order and all I got was a machine. I left a message and waited patiently for someone to call me back. Since no one did I then drove to the place because luckily it was not far from my house and there was a line out the door and no line for just pick up orders. I then left another message to cancel my order. This place takeout system is horrible. I suggest that you eat there and be ready to wait in a very long line.

I don't know if they are really set up for "to go" orders; I've never heard anyone say "I am ordering take out from Pieous tonight". As they are substantially busy every night, your experience sounds unfortunate if not a bit melodramatic. Have you tried reaching out to them on social media? They seem very good about using their Facebook page for communication, and I am sure they would want constructive feedback.

Thank you for your review! It's nice to get the opinion of another foodie. Pizza is my husband's favorite food group and I've been eyeing Pieous for months. It's a little out of the way but he surprised me with a dinner invitation tonight, so I'll surprise him with this as our destination. ;-) I love that they use quality ingredients and put their own creative spin on the ages old pizza experience. Also that the owners are there and really care about the guest experience - so important. Can't wait and I'll write more after dinner!

Well, we went, and... I'm speechless. I'm always on the lookout for real foodie experiences - the kind you get with a food truck: attention to every detail from the beginning, using high quality superb ingredients and presenting them simply, as they need no fanfare to be amazing. Pieous has these qualities. Worth every penny and the time it took to get there. We started with a plain cheese pizza (the true test of a pizza place), and a smokey Italian (they make their Italian sausage and their mozzarella in-house daily.) Half way through those we saw the pastrami being sliced in the back and knew we needed to try some. So we got that along with a salted caramel cheesecake (also made there). The pastrami was the best beef product I've ever tasted (you have a choice of lean or juicy). We were there a little over an hour and saw around 50 people go through the line. The pizzas come out so quickly you don't have to wait long. It's a super efficient place with great atmosphere and creative thought went into every aspect of it. We loved it and will go back again and again. Great place to take out of town guests!

It's 7:40 am, and you're making me crave pizza! So glad to hear you enjoyed it! And you went on a Sunday, which I am sure is a very busy time. I haven't had the smokey Italian, but I may have to try that! Cheers!